our little propagating nursery ....

so ... feeling the drive to get some tree's ready to plant has really been on my mind.  with the exchange on our house in sydney this week, and settlement early january .... it means that we need to be working hard to have some tree's ready to be planted out when we find JustEarth here in the heart of Northern NSW.  but gee-willy-wonkers!  the sun can really get to the young tree's up here!  so striking and then just setting out in a pot won't do it here, they need heaps of tlc ... love and tender care .... they need a nursery!

so enter one amazing husband who is about as ingenious as it gets ....

we had an old greenhouse that we brought with us in them move, thinking that somehow, someway .... ONE DAY it might get reused ..... so hubby cracks it out and puts it together.  we put shade cloth over it, but not before installing a  gentle drip line so that i can turn the tap on and let those tender young trees get soaked.

pretty great, huh?  all up it cost us around $50.  and when you think that the goal is propagate well over 100 trees, the cost savings to provide some tlc as these babies harden up is immense!   there is excess run off from the water right now and the misting system is a bit "generous" and sprays around the outside edges of the nursery as well.  but the cool thing is, once we are passed the heat of the summer, with those plants that are bigger, i can put them outside the nursery to harden up a bit and they'll get the extra misting from the system!

right now we have 3 acacia's, 3 mango's, a native macadamia and a fig.  i went a bit berzerk at Daley's Nursery ... they are the best sub tropical and natives nursery around, and they are 20 minutes away!  all of these i got for a total of about $49.  wow!  i just had to spoil myself!

however, the reality is that most of my propagating will occur from cuttings that i get from neighbors and friends.  i have access to coffee, mulberry, willow, a variety of citrus, olive .... so many things.  the more i can do via "freebies" the better off i am.  not just cost wise .... but if i am sourcing local cuttings ... it means that the tree's are local and have been hardened to this environment and as such, stand a better chance of surviving.

so i expect that most future additions to plant nursery will be much smaller and will take some time to grow.  but that's ok!  it's all about planning and doing now, so that when we are ready to move ... one of the first things we can do is get heaps of tree's into the ground!